


This Is Not An Ultimate Dirk

by Unda



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Epilogue, Philosophy, author insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-25 22:20:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18583732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unda/pseuds/Unda
Summary: Being a heart player and also a pretentious philosophy loser the author has feelings about the whole Ultimate Dirk thing.





	This Is Not An Ultimate Dirk

Your liberated ship grinds to a halt in space and in a kindness from physics that you weren’t expecting you somehow aren’t atomised on the nearest wall thanks to the cessation of momentum.

“The fuck?” you say.

Rosebot informs you that you’ve simply stopped which you already knew, thanks. You step out of the airlock and into space outside, one of the perks of godhood. In the distance around you there’s a pinkish sheen to space and if you were to note that it bears a similar hue to your own clothes you’d be correct. Your eyes don’t so much as unfocus as they take in something larger than they’re used to, like trying to take in the horizon over the sea all at once. Along the sheen you see lighter spaces which if you take a big enough view almost look like fingertips of some colossal hand.

“Why don’t you come up here?” a voice says.

You twist in the air, well in the void of space really, and see a figure sat atop your ship. Flying up as fast as you can you see a person, a human, dressed in heart clothes but not your prince garb. No, you’d seen alternate Kanayas like this.

“Who the hell are you? How did some gi-” you inexplicably find yourself choking on your own spit instead of saying a wrong word. How embarrassing for you.

“Not a girl, thanks. But plenty of people make the mistake.” the sylph says, tucking some rainbow hair behind their ear. How ~~pretentious~~ very cool can you get?

“You’re controlling the narrative.” you say and though you try to wrest it back, you can’t.

“Mmm, it’s kind of my jam as it happens. But don’t worry, I don’t intend on puppeting you about, my… influence should we call it only exists within what I’ve quarantined here. I want to talk.” the sylph says.

“Maybe I don’t.” you tell them.

“I guess I don’t really need you to want to right now. That sounds way creepy actually, I mean that I have some thoughts and I’m sure if I share enough you’ll eventually want to talk back.” they say with a laugh.

“I know a lot about you, Dirk. I’d like to know a little more.” they say.

You very pointedly don’t say anything, you’re tempted to try to attack this intruder with your sword but you’re very certain that won’t do anything. You’re also aware that you’re being made to think that and you try once more to wrest back narrative control but to no avail. Incidentally, if you knew that when you tried to do that it made your face look a little like you were both sucking on a lemon and trying to de-seed it with your tongue, you wouldn’t keep trying.

“Stop that.” you snap and the sylph grins.

“You’re aware the timeline branched when John made his choice, yes? I mean all choices make timelines branch because that’s how time works but that’s got to be the most specific and wildly important lunch choice ever, right?” the slyph says.

“I’m aware.” you confirm.

“Good. And you deliberately orchestrated a lot of the events either directly or through narrative control as a means of maintaining relevance, right?” they ask.

“Our world was outside canon, we were losing relevance and truth. Something had to be done, even if it means making myself the villain.” you say.

The slyph shoots you a look and pulls something out of their sylladex, a pin, the kind you use for sewing. You feel your words still stuck to your tongue suddenly wrenched from you and literally pinned to thin air, glimmering in text form before you.

“That’s interesting, I’m sure we’ll come back to it.” they remark. “Tell me what canon means.” they ask.

“Shall I start with biblical canon and work my way up? How much time do you have?” you ask sarcastically and finally sit down.

“Funny, and that could be interesting but pass. Canon in a story is the way things actually happened, things that are outside canon or questionably canon might have happened but you can’t say otherwise. Such as Gandalf may have been wearing a red sparkly thong throughout the whole Hobbit adventure, who’s to say? Non-canon is things that explicitly aren’t so, it is not canon that Lord English’s body looks like a small fluffy rabbit because we’ve seen otherwise in canon. Agreed?” they ask.

“Right, and ever since we went through that door we became non-canon.” you say like it’s obvious.

“Sure, the story was over. Your lives went on, hell, half the point for us was it meant that any outcome after that was as canon as any other!” the sylph says in clear frustration.

“Was?” you say, surprising the sylph. It seems that narrative control doesn’t mean you can’t still surprise them, though unshakable their hold doesn’t seem too tight on you.

“There were…” the sylph hesitates, “epilogues. Which, speaking from my standpoint I don’t know if that’s your fault or the author’s but here we are.”

“You said for us, the point for ‘us’ was that any outcome was equally canon. Who is ‘us’?” you press.

At this the sylph looks a little uncomfortable. They fiddle with their slyph robes a little before answering.

“You’re aware of the narrative, of canon. These are things from stories. This isn’t like the whole if a tree falls in a forest does it make a sound business. A narrative doesn’t strictly need them but in your case there are… readers. Of canon, outside canon and non-canon alike.” they say.

You are afforded a degree of privacy to the confirmation of something you’ve long suspected but avoided thinking about. Your thoughts and feelings on this matter are not dictated to you and you suppose not broadcast to anyone else.

“We can circle back to that but I wanted to ask you about this ultimate self thing.” they say instead, “Basically, what the fuck, Dirk?”

“What do you mean what the fuck? This the fuck. Since being outside of canon my awareness of other iterations of myself broadened beyond my control, making me the Ultimate Dirk. Rose’s awareness has similarly-” you begin.

“You’re the dumbest motherfucker!” the sylph shouts, throwing their hands up in the air.

“So you’re aware of some other Dirks because heart is a bullshit power, we can both agree on that, that doesn’t make you some ultimate self. I actually have degrees in philosophy that I didn’t get from Wikipedia, unlike you! You’re acting like your world was some Plato’s cave and everyone is transfixed by these shadows but only you, and Rose with your godly help, can stand to turn around and look at things-as-they-are. There is no Ultimate Dirk living in the realm of the forms and even if there was you definitively cannot be him because you’re taking actions that narrow down who you are and aren’t! This isn’t some shadow allegory, it’s a metaphor that means you need to stop being fake-deep in your room and make your life meaningful yourself!” the sylph yells, on their feet now and glaring at you.

“Well excuse me for growing up in a post-apocalyptic-” you cut yourself off, mercifully because you were about to continue being stupid and the sylph wasn’t done yet, thank you.

“Ceci n’est pas une Utimate Dirk!” they say spitefully in mangled French and flick you in the forehead as they do.

“Now who’s being pretentious?” you argue.

The sylph drops to the ground and lifts their skirt high enough in a ruffled ball to muffle a scream into it. A few seconds pass and they let their crumpled skirts go and sigh.

“I hate these fuckin’ things.” they grumble and try to smooth the skirts down.

“You can change them, I mean look.” you point out, gesturing to your very fancy outfit. The sylph doesn’t look impressed.

“Let’s try this a different way. Your theory is that you are the “Ultimate Dirk” and my theory is that you are merely aware of some others and influencing each other a little. Is your statement that you're comprised of or are aware of all Dirks regardless of canonical status?” they ask, their voice calmer.

“Yes.” you agree.

“Well let’s get that disproved right away then.” they say and hold out their hands, closing their eyes.

A bubble forms, again layered with the same heart pink as the one holding your ship and when it gets to person sized a Dirk appears in it. Seemingly sleeping and you would guess somewhat younger than you. He’s wearing one of your old black tanktops and his arm is covered in tattoos but not the one Jake gave you all those years ago.

“You don’t know who he is, do you? He’s a Dirk, a different one from a different universe. His existence is outside canon though it flirts with it briefly. He’s one of mine, actually. I made him. But he is a Dirk, you can see that, right?” the sylph says.

You stare and feel out the heart of this Dirk. He’s not you, there are parts of him that are way off piste for you but so are a lot of your other selves. He has a core of your soul in him somewhere, he’s A Dirk. The sylph laughs softly and waves the bubble away into nothingness.

“Your house of cards tumbles pretty easily, Dirk. You said here about making yourself the villain, but an Ultimate Dirk would be unchanging in the truth of his ultimate-ness, making yourself something else implies not only stepping away from that ultimate self, if such a thing exists, but also making yourself into something you’re not.” they say and you bristle at this.

“And you, having read my ‘story’, think I’m… what? Better than that?” you sneer.

“Yes and no, I suppose. This is the whole heart thing, really.” they say softly.

They wave their hands and a huge, pink, glittering, heart of diamond appears.

“If we’re using metaphor here your ‘self’ is like this. Multi-faceted to an impossible degree. You’re Hal, you’re Bro, you’re part of Cal, ARquius, you’re pre-retcon Dirk, you’re you, it goes on.” they say, tilting the giant gem this way and that to throw reflections of images at you.

“They’re all contradictory and jumbled but in each of them there’s a splinter of self but, paradoxically, they’re a whole expression of you all by themselves. They’re both a part and a complete thing. You have the capacity for great things, wonderful personality traits and behaviours as well as awful things, terrible flaws and despicable acts. This is why truth is such a stupid concept as far as I’m concerned. This is not a yes/no question, meat or candy, your false dichotomy is stupid, it’s always been all of the above simultaneously.” they say.

“You want to crack all of these down into one true thing and you can’t. You can shatter the whole thing, very princely I suppose, and try to force it into a mirror to show who you are but that’s not the same thing.” they say and hand the gem to you.

It feels… questionably real. Like your hands are touching it and even they’re not totally sure about this business.

“I get mind players, I do. It’s nice to say that an action is good or bad or has positive or negative consequences. It feels simpler, more real, though I’m sure it’s harder in practice. But with heart, with the self… most people don’t know who they really are. People prefer not to know. I mean it took Dave ages to figure himself out, if he’s even done with it and Roxy too, plus if we’re looking at avoiding who you are Jake is pretty good as examples go. Who you are is influenced by your world, by everything. You’re a constantly changing thing in motion that can never be fully described to anyone else. I- hey, do you know the beetle in the box argument?” they derail themselves and look at you.

You nod, still a little transfixed by the infinite reflection of yourself in the gem they handed you. So many different lives lived, some good, some awful and some just so-so.

“Wittgenstein made an argument on language. His point was about pain. Only I can know I’m in pain and I can only guess about other people, the mind is the same. We all have this thing, I suppose you want me to say our heart since that’s your angle, but we can only talk about it to other people, never show the actual thing. Wittgenstein’s analogy was everyone has a box, they can never show what’s in it and we’re told that what is in our boxes is called a beetle. My beetle may actually be totally different to yours and we’ll never know. We can only assume everyone else is like us, it gets very solipsistic if you ask me.” you answer.

“That’s one way of looking at it. You’re still hung up on truth, I think. If you can’t simplify it and express it to people is it even real? Is your world even real? Are you? I’ve gotta be honest with you, man, feeling like you’ve been suddenly cut loose and nothing matters and this isn’t how it was supposed to be and you’ve got to do SOMETHING is just how your twenties and thirties is. Maybe your whole life, I’ll let you know. This is a quarter-life crisis with god powers, antagonistic narcissism and control issues if you ask me.” the sylph shrugs.

“I didn’t.” you point out. The sylph shrugs like ‘what’re you gonna do’ despite your argument.

“Nothing matters and crushing uncertainty is the only certainty isn’t the ‘talking me out of this’.” you say sharply.

“Man, nothing matters. You’ll never know if you’re real, if reality is real, if people really care about you, if things will turn out ok. Nothing is certain, nothing objectively matters. You can do anything and I think that’s great. Do what you want, be an optimistic nihilist. So your world may not matter, why not make it nicer and how canon it is be damned? I’m not talking you out of this because after this bubble of mine comes down you’ll do whatever you do and there’s dick I can do about it. I don’t even truly care that you’ve become a Dirk I like less than other versions because you’re still a valid expression of what ‘Dirk’ as an entity is capable of, same with your whole world. You’re the answer to the equation ‘what if Dirk but X, Y and Z?’.” the sylph says and stands up with a shrug.

“So why did you come here?” you ask, trying to hand the giant crystal heart back but they don’t seem to want to take it.

“Like I said, I had questions. Mostly about your reasoning and I had thoughts about what I’ve seen you do. Maybe the better question is if there was no one to redeem you, no god, no council of readers to deem you problematic or valid. If you had no need to repent and just had your actions, if the only thing real was the world you just left and the people in it… what would you want to do? What would they want? Do you care? There are versions of you in people’s heads no doubt who are just as outside canon as many others who turn the ship around, who try to mend their harm. Not to mention those who pick an earlier you before those mistakes and ensure so much doesn’t go wrong.” they say thoughtfully and then shrug.

“All expressions of the self are as real as each other to me. The question really is which one do you want to pilot this awareness through?” they say with a smile and touch you on the forehead. Then, suddenly, they’re gone. The bubble around you pops and when you look down at your hands again there’s no gem there. No refracting bauble of your own soul.

Where do you go from here?


End file.
